Oh my god what am I doing - is this right?!

PMKeates

PMKeates

PMKeates

Soldato
Joined
16 Jul 2004
Posts
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As you all must know by now, my used car preference is a Rover 220 Coupe Turbo.

But, a car has come up for sale near where I live. It's a Rover 820 Vitesse Coupe. It's basically the 220's bigger brother, with slightly poorer performance due to the weight, but with more luxury such as full leather heated electric memory seats.

For those that can't picture one:
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It's had one lady owner since new, not a single modification, a full service history and has a "low mileage" - need to confirm the figure.

It's up at £2,000, but could probably get it for £1,750. Am I getting a REALLY old man's car far too early, or would I be passing up a really great car?

Something else important is can these barges go round corners!?
 
If I was in your shoes, I'd definitely go for the 820!

Much much better build quality than the 200's. The 820 is excellent inside, and more often than not, better spec'd.

I wouldn't say the 820 is slow though. I had a ride in benno_bro's Vitty Sport and with 4 fat people in (:p) it still shifted like **** off a shovel! I don't think the guy in the MX-5 we overtook was too happy to see a big Rover barge move so quick!

The handling ability isn't the best, as you'd expect, but I wouldn't class them as dangerous. My Dad loves to take his 800 on country drives and has never commented on it being a bad ride.

Like I said, if I was in your shoes... I know what car I'd have. Everyone has a Coupe Turbo these days, they just don't have the same stealth factor. An 800 though... well... get a BOV on one of those and watch those people grin :D
 
Ick. We had a Sterling, 4 door variant. Horrible car in every way shape and form. Most redeeming thing was we sold it.

Not sure about this mind. Still, 2 grand? Jesus! :eek:
 
I dont know much about them and i would guess that the handling wont be top notch, but over a 220, definately :)
 
GT3 said:
Hang on, weren't you looking at £25k brand new jap sports cars last week?
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I said I was curious as to what the options and opinions were on such brand new cars, which with OcUK's help I decided weren't very good :)
 
One of my workmates used to have one just like that. I was a passenger in it a couple of times and it was reasonably powerful. That's about the only thing it had going for it to be honest. It broke his heart, every week it developed a new problem, usually something to do with the electrics. The majority of the electrics didn't work and on occasions some of them would just turn on out of the blue, i.e. you'd be driving along and the stereo would turn off whilst all the indoor lights would turn on.

He got rid of it in the end as it was costing him a couple of hundred quid a month to keep it on the road. They may not all be like that but it 's the general impression I get about high specced Rovers.
 
PMKeates said:
I said I was curious as to what the options and opinions were on such brand new cars, which with OcUK's help I decided weren't very good :)
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Just seems like one extreme to the other, what about a nice £5k MX5 or something?
 
Just get a nice MX5 unless you do 50 mile + motorway journeys all the time, why would you need a car this big.
 
Electric problems are a VERY easy fix. Dry joints in the passenger compartment fuse box is the normal problem.

DIY job or maybe £40-50 at your local Autoelectrician.

I absolutely adore the Vitesse Coupe. My boss has a 5 door Vitesse with 150k on the clock and it still pulls like a train :)
 
I had something similar with an old Volvo. The mechanic I took it too, took about 5 minutes to fix it. The ground for a lot of simple circuits runs through the car body and as the car ages and rusts those circuits become unreliable.

All he did was rub down metal to take off some surface rust, hey presto the indicators work again :)
 
GT3 said:
Just seems like one extreme to the other, what about a nice £5k MX5 or something?
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That's because I'm only really interested in the extremes. I don't want a car that's an all rounder.

All the old MX-5's I've seen have been horrible for the money, thanks to their booming second hand market. Would be nice, but I'd rather not.
 
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geiger said:
Just get a nice MX5 unless you do 50 mile + motorway journeys all the time, why would you need a car this big.
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It tends to be that the bigger the car, the more comfortable it becomes. I want a Rover 220 Coupe Turbo - staggering performance for the money. Trying to find one that I want to spend my money on, however, is much harder. Whereas there seems to be a wealth of well-treated 820 Turbo's around.
 
They're nice cars but they do have an old man image

If you're looking at a £5k budget may I suggest an MG ZR 120+?

Based on the Rover 25 with uprated suspension, brakes, shocks, etc. I've only had mine for a few days but I'm rather happy with it

See my thread on it here
 
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